Autobiography: Growing Up

My life before Taiwan was very interesting because I had a great childhood and a busy student life. I was born to a 25-year-old electrician and his 15-year-old wife on July 25, 1952. I grew up in a small village in southern Illinois, where I spent my time in my room reading or in the woods with my cousin, Denny. We ran naked through the thick woods surrounding the village and fought imaginary lions and tigers. In the dark center of the dark green woods was a small pond where our friends and we would swing from ropes and drop into the cool water. We would not infrequently hide any newcomer’s clothes from him. We would laugh until we cried as he begged us to return at least some underwear. We actually continued this frolicking well into high school until one day someone hiding in the woods took our pictures and passed them around to our classmates.

     My high school only had 84 students who were mostly farmers and miners. No one was interested in going to college, so the boys studied agriculture and welding and the girls studied home economics and typing. I didn’t know who I was, but I knew I would never be a farmer. So, much to my father’s dismay, I mostly studied cooking and typing and participated in all the school activities. I was president of my class for three years, cheerleader, editor of the school annual and editor of the school newspaper. You know I was so busy that I hardly had time for class. To make extra money, I worked in my uncle’s grocery store cutting meat after school each day.

     After high school during the summer of 1970, I worked as an errand boy for a handsome, but strict civil engineer who would often punish me for being lazy. That autumn, I started studying at a 2-year community college, where, for the most part, I studied painting and drawing along with the other necessary courses like math, psychology, and history. There I also wrote for the school paper.

     Two years later, I didn’t know if I wanted to continue my education or not. So, first I moved to Kentucky and worked as a carpenter, I quit before they fired me. Then, I moved to Florida and worked in a mental hospital. I was only 19 then, and when my 32-year-old girlfriend asked me to marry her, I left in the middle of the night back to Illinois where I started back to school at Southern Illinois University.

     At Southern Illinois University, I majored in art and minored in Chinese. Art was an expensive major and I was a poor student, so I worked as a model for the art department, as a secretary for the international office and as an assistant for my dormitory. My grades were always high, so I also got a scholarship. At school I met a lot of students from Taiwan who became my closest friends. When I graduated in 1975, I wanted to go Taiwan, but my Chinese professor convinced me to get a masters degree in linguistics and language teaching first. My art professors were a little upset, but I told them I would still model for them even if I didn’t continue my studies in painting.

     In 1976 at a young age of twenty-three years old, I graduated with a masters degree, said good-bye to my teachers, my parents and the United States. I landed at Tunghai University, Taiwan as an English teacher. Since then I’ve taught at NTU, NKFUST, and NUK.  I am still here in Asia. Although my life in Asia has also been interesting, I remember my youth with great fondness.

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  Since September 7, 2004